


Death on the Thames Barrier

by Zoya1416



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Filicide, Gen, Imperial plots, Old and new Friends, Patricide, canonical violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-11
Updated: 2014-04-11
Packaged: 2018-01-18 23:26:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1446814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoya1416/pseuds/Zoya1416
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Duv Galeni  POV of that night on the Thames Barrier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Death on the Thames Barrier

**Author's Note:**

> Vorkosigan's is LMB's.

Duv could never say, afterward, what made him step into the path of a nerve disrupter beam. He had been transfixed by the argument in front of him on the Thames River Barrier. Galen was urging another innocent to kill for him. 

He'd been overwhelmed to find that his father was still alive. How had Galen, who had been so much closer to the blast, lived when Duv's brother had been killed? It was ugly. His brother had been killed to insure their father's disappearance. David, DUV, was free to pursue his own life. 

He'd gone to Barrayar and earned a doctorate by studying the Vor. Then the Imperial Academy was opened to Komarrans. He'd applied that same day. Imperial military rank was the road to diplomatic service, his true goal, to serve Komarr with his words.

He and Vorkosigan had freed themselves, then learned that Vorpatril had been kidnapped. He'd shocked Galen (Good!) by showing up instead of Elli Quinn. They were supposed to bargain in good faith, by setting down their stunners. One more time he was betrayed when Galen drew out the disrupter. 

Miles was still arguing. Galen had created a slave-son, deformed. A clone, all of Vorkosigan's bony errors brutally copied onto it, then mentally tortured. 

This little clone was supposed to kill Miles, Aral Vorkosigan, and Emperor Gregor, and proclaim himself Emperor. Then he was supposed to set Komarr free, solely by his own decree? This was the twenty-year plot? 

Barrayarans scarcely tolerated Miles even though there was one theory of inheritance which put Miles third in line for the camp stool. But mutant-hating people were never going to accept Miles' little twisted body as Emperor, in this lifetime or the next. 

He looked up to hear Miles offer Galen and his clone a one hundred thousand mark credit chit to spare everyone's lives and retire from terrorism. With death warrants on two planets!

Then Galen spoke.

“So, David, what would you offer me, to lay beside your Barrayaran master's money?”

He'd been caught off guard, though he knew he didn't look it, and casually buffed his fingernails on a trouser seam.

“Grandchildren?” He didn't know why he'd made the offer—but someone had to hope. Someone had to create a generation never touched by Solstice.

It broke his father's murderous train of thought. He'd said stupidly, “you're not even bonded yet!”

“I might be. If I lived.” Please, Father, accept this final chance of redemption. 

Even if you have to hide at the ends of the universe and never see your grandchildren in person, we could—what? Exchange Winterfair greeting? Receive and play videos? “Oh, look, Grandfather, see how tall I'm getting to be. No, Jensy, stop it, I'm talking to him, it's your turn next!”...if Duv could ignore the years it had taken him to earn his present position...if Galen could leave off his rage...if there were just one more chance— Please let all the deaths stop here, old man.

But Galen had shrugged him off and was now arguing with the clone, trying to get him to kill Miles.

“You must kill in order to learn how to live.”

Chills went down his spine. His father had said exactly the same thing to him, when he'd demurred at setting a bomb in place. Had he really been such a crass and unformed and trusting child? So blinded?

Yes. He had. Except for the disappearance of his father, he might have continued to be blinded.

Miles was talking again—Duv would bet money that Miles could out-argue the Devil when it came time to collect his soul.

The argument at the other end of the deck was growing furious and unstable. Galen was now trying to wrench the disrupter away, clawing for the trigger. He was a much bigger man—it would take only moments. 

He couldn't let his father kill any Barrayarans again, especially not the short argumentative man who'd made his life hell these last several weeks. No more.

Nerve disrupter death wasn't painless, but it was fairly quick. He rapidly stepped in front of Miles, heard the disrupter's crackle, and started to fall—but he was untouched. Where had the—oh. His father was emphatically dead. The beam had caught him square in the head. The clone was staring in horror, and then ran away. 

Duv chased after him, running down the confusing structure, doors, corridors, lift tubes in bewildering sequences. Planning to kill, no, torture, no, beat the crap out of—the little man who had ended all his last chances. 

He was at the bottom of the Barrier now, flailing. It seemed since that blue-flashing crackled moment he hadn't drawn breath. He was out of the access tunnel now, but at the wrong end.

He saw Tabor. Why were the Cetagandans here? Who had been the source of all the chaos recently? One guess. Or, two, considering that Lord Vorkosigan played the role of a mercenary fleet Admiral. Right, they had freed10,000 Marilacans from a Cetagandan POW camp. Then a ghem-captain showed up, painted in formal colors for a hunt. A defined enemy!

He could never explain how he'd come to overpower two Cetagandans at once. Beserker was the term, but a poor definition for a condition in which the enemies moved in slow motion while he flew through them. He'd left them alive.

He still had to find Miles, Ivan, and Elli. His brain was on pause so that he didn't think of that crack-buzz-pop. Did he hate the clone for killing Galen? Or for killing Galen before he could? He simply didn't know.

“Galeni!” It was Miles, Ivan, Elli, and the murderous clone. But murder was Galen's business, and that was finally finished.

They let the clone run away, and that was probably best. If that little face popped out again—fortunately, that was never going to happen. He leaned back in his seat in the early morning earth sunlight.


End file.
